Legend of the Legionless
by Moctheusername
Summary: Kabr dared to dwell the Vault and he paid for it. He vanished into legend, just like the great Guardians of old. He had to vanish to somewhere though, right? This is the story of Kabr's other legend, the one of a place outside of known space and time- on a planet named Remnant.
1. Chapter 1

**One day, I'll stop posting new stories when I really shouldn't. I know I will one day. Just not today, for today I will celebrate the release of **_**The Dark Below**_** by publishing a new story. One featuring arguably the most bada*s Titan there is/was, Kabr the Legionless. I'm not going to have a extremely long introduction, I'm just going to start the story. Enjoy (or not, you may hate my guts for all I know).**

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><p>Deep within the mechanical crust of Venus, only one fading speck of Light still fought the surrounding Darkness.<p>

Flashes of fire and heat filled the air, briefly highlighting hordes and hordes of brown Vex as they streamed towards the only source of light in the cavern. Sounds of crunching electronics and breaking metal rang throughout the room, just barely drowned out by the never-ending pounding of metallic feet marching towards its target.

The next wave came, charging at its foe as they fired and sent even more streams of fire into the air. Flame struck light made solid, dissipating into molecules the moment they touched the shield made from a destroyed Gorgon.

The Vex continued moving forward, unfazed, swarming towards their enemy in an attempt to overwhelm him with superior numbers. Said enemy merely held his ground on the center of the stairway leading to the Glass Throne, channeling as much Light as he could into the shield before they could reach him. Then, as the Vex came crashing down at him, he struck.

The first Vex that arrived he bashed with the shield, putting himself directly into the center of the swarm. The flame bolts finally began impacting against his armor but he ignored them in favor of the swarm facing him. Instead he swung his shield again, taking out two or three of the Goblins to the side of him. Seeing an opportunity, one particularly bold Goblin teleported to right next to him in a flash of electricity. Ducking underneath the void-infused punch it tried and left without room to use his shield, he leaped forward and headbutted the white crystal pulsing in its stomach, causing it to break into pieces and send its host collapsing to the ground in a shower of sparks.

By then, he was already gone, busy jumping into the sky and slamming the shield into the ground, sending several Goblins off the edge of the stairs and into the pit below by a light-infused shockwave. Without a moment's pause, he chucked a magnetic grenade into the crowd of Vex still standing, a explosion of Void power destroying a few and sending the rest scurrying back for cover. He took the moment's respite to stand still and evaluate the situation as it was.

It was not good. He was forced to abandon the prototypes for his armor a while back along with most of his Vex-derived weaponry, leaving him with only his more advanced form of armor and two of his more Vex-like weapons. As it was, they were out of ammo, forcing him to solely use his latest, greatest, and probably his final creation, the Aegis, against the horde that now had him trapped deep within the Vault. He'll still fight, though, fight and slaughter and destroy all of the Vex that dared to attack him until he collapsed from exhaustion. He was famous for his determination so it was going to be a long while yet. Then he was shaken out of his thoughts by the Vex charging towards him, and so the fight continued.

Minutes, hours, days, not even the literal machines there knew how long they fought. Finally, just as the next group were about to stomp across the Vex parts that coated the ground by now, they stopped, as if receiving orders, before pulling back. He stopped as well, the Aegis held at a ready position in case this was a surprise attack and they were just lulling into into a fake sense of victory.

Rumbling then filled his helmet's filters, causing him to turn around and stare stoically at the top of the stairs just as a flash of light shone there. A massive figure appeared in the light and seemed to step out of it before it faded away, leaving the room shrouded in darkness save for the faint light come from the figure and the Aegis.

It stepped onto the top of stairs, hefting a much larger version of one of the Praetorian Void-launchers in one of its hands. To him, it looked like a glass hybrid of a Goblin and a Minotaur, complete with weapon and power core. They stared at each other for a moment, the room silent, one white eye meeting the glowing red one of his helmet in a deadlock.

The figure began firing without warning seconds later, large blobs of lethal Void matter arcing towards him. He focused, a white sphere made of Light forming around him just in time to stop the blobs from hitting him. This continued for a minute before the glass creature stopped, apparently realizing that they were at a stalemate. Then, with a sense of finality, it raised one glass hand and he suddenly felt his very being shimmer, his existence unraveling by the second.

He was going to die or vanish or whatever this thing was doing, that was for sure at this point, but he would not go without leaving a mark. He had not tried this before, didn't even know if it could work, but he still had to try. Channeling every ounce of Light the Traveler would allow him to, he filled the shield, filling it so much that it couldn't handle the sheer amount of Light flowing through it and expunged it out in the from of a massive missile, going straight for the glass figure. Just as it impacted, he vanished along with the Vex parts and the few unlucky Vex that were misfortunate enough to be close to him at the time, leaving behind only the Aegis, the remaining Vex, and the glass figure cringing in pain.

It had planned for everything, calculated every possibility, and had everything the Vex knew of translated into data form locked into its electronic brain and accounted for, but this… this… _pain_ was something that it NEVER could have calculated. So much Light in one attack, it was mathematically impossible and yet it existed anyway! It screwed up every calculation it had, every single one! Even the one it was doing to send its foe into the timestream was messed up. That one was unfixable, no matter what, because it was already processed and its effects already woven into the fabric of reality. There was no way to recalculate the rest of the equations, not at that rate that the massive Vex was currently computing, so there was only one option.

The massive glass Vex, later codenamed Atheon by the City, had no choice but to insert the Aegis into every reality of the Vault of Glass, past, present, and future. It was the only way to allow every calculation to self-correct, for it always existed and always will, therefore it always was calculated to begin with. As a result, the Aegis was not created, it simply existed. It simply _was._

Thus Kabr the Legionless, the lone Titan who dared to dwell the Vault, triumphed over Atheon in the end, by creating the means of its own destruction by its own hand. Thus, the Vault was purged many years later by a fireteam of Guardians and was rendered a mechanical tomb for eternity. Thus, the Vex were crippled and the City celebrated and thrived.

Thus, Kabr became legend.

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><p>At least, that was normally believed to have been the case.<p>

Instead, he had another legend, in an another place, in an another time. There, Kabr's legend was something different, something more, and it all began after Atheon sent him into the timestream.

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><p>For the briefest of moments, Kabr felt himself disintergrate and become nothing, then the moment passed and he found himself in a clearing in the midst of a forest. He was surrounded by the fallen Vex and their remains but the living (well, as much as machines could live) ones had vanished.<p>

He stumbled as he stepped forward, a sudden wave of nausea pounding in his skull. Apparently having your existence unwritten and then rewritten in the fabric of reality was a bit of a dizzying experience. Nevertheless, he stood back up soon enough and began examining his surroundings.

The forest surrounding him was actually on a mountainside if the view he could see over the treetops was any indication. It appeared to go on for several miles, uniterrupted, before the vegetation died off and eventually became sand as the forest shifted into a beach as it reached the ocean. No matter how far he could see, there was not a single sign of civilization.

Kabr looked away from the view and instead focused in on his armor. It could read his coordinates in both space and time, and if he was close enough to his ship he could call it in and return to the City to warn them. The Speaker needed to hear about the Vault and send a team in to destroy the machines within. Hopefully he would send a full team this time, no one person… alone… could defeat the Vault… was he alone? Wasn't there…?

_Beep, beep, beep._ The armor indicated it was done finding the coordinates, bringing Kabr back to the present. If only he still had his Ghost, then he wouldn't have to wait for his armor to find the coordinates every twenty minutes. Oh well, he'll make do with what he has. He read the display that appeared floating above his right arm. Then read it again. Then again. Finally he stopped looking, instead clicking it off and instead choose to begin gathering the Vex parts for anaylsis.

How could he be outside of known space and time? The Vex could warp him around, even send him through time, but they never could transport him outside of what they know. They were machines and machines couldn't calculate for something that didn't exist. That's where he was, technically, somewhere that didn't exist. He could be in the Black Garden, maybe, but why would they warp him straight into their most sacred place?

Suddenly he heard a noise, making him stop his scrounging and turn towards where it came from. It sounded like the animals he once heard fighting in the jungles on Venus. There was snarling and growling, probably having cornered some prey and were now about to pounce. Kabr turned back to his scavenging, not caring about the circle of life one bit, but stopped when the sound of the prey hit his ears.

The sound of a man yelling in fear.

Immediately he dropped whatever pieces of Vex he had in his hands and sprinted towards the sounds of violence. No matter where he was, he was a Guardian and Guardians protect those couldn't themselves (**oh gosh, that was so cliche that I want to slap myself)**.

Then the sound of fighting Vex filled his ears and all became a blur.

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><p>The hunter (<strong>a regular one)<strong> was pinned up against a boulder, a pack of Beowolves closing in around him. His bow had long since been broken, his spear splintered and shattered on the ground. This was it, he was doomed.

Why, oh why didn't he listen to the elder and not leave camp this morning? Now he was going to die and he wasn't even twenty yet!

He had already yelled his voice hoarse and was about to accept his fate as dinner when something strange happened. Creatures made of brown metal filled the clearing, outnumbering both him and the Beowolves two to one. They were stumbling about, fighting amongst themselves and somehow sending swathes of flame randomly into the air from long tubes of metal as they went.

Within seconds, several Bowolves were lit on fire and were scrambling around the clearing, some already succumbing to the flames and collapsing to the ground. One tried to attack the mysterious attackers but was struck with a flash of purple, its body disintergrating into the air. Another tried to flee, only to be hit with several shots at once and bursting into a rest, seeing their opportunity slipping away, inched closer to the trapped hunter, jaws opening to devour him before they were killed.

Before they could reach him or the other creatures could move closer in their frenzied state, something entirely different entered the clearing.

It looked like the metal creatures on first glance but it was much bulkier upon looking again. Whereas the creatures were thin and entirely metal, the new being was bulky and it appeared only parts of it were metal, the rest of it consisting of some form of black cloth. Despite that, it still was very similiar. It had the same wires, it had the same accents, it even had the same red eye. However, while their eyes flickered like a dimming fire, its glowed constantly, like a steady flame.

The hunter saw all of this in only a moment because after that moment the being struck.

In a blink of an eye it was across the clearing, its hand grasping one of the metal creature's eyes before ripping it straight out. It crushed the eye into bits, then punched the creature straight in the chest. It exploded in a shower of sparks and began to fall to the ground. Before it could, though, its destroyer grabbed it by the legs, swung it around, and threw it across the clearing, the body crashing into several others and sending them straight to the ground in another explosion of sparks.

By then more of the metal constructs had noticed the newcomer and had started firing at it. The flames were ignored by their target in favor of rushing forward and punching another one into smoldering bits. It reached down and grabbed its metal weapon out of the pile of parts, kicking aside some scraps in the process. Then, in a combination of fire and fists, it desposed of most of the rest of the other creatures, leaving only scraps of metal and wires littering the ground.

Only then had it noticed the Beowolves hovering around the hunter. The sudden intrusion had confused the creatures and had them milling around, sparing the hunter for a few more moments.

The bulky imposter aimed at the Grimm and fired at them, hitting several in the mask and others on the back. As they either began running about on fire or recoiled from the sudden scorch marks on their masks, the creature ran to them, firing at the surviving metal creatures (who were still not all focused on it) while doing so and taking down a few more in the process.

The moment it reached the panicked Grimm, it began flinging out punches, shattering masks, breaking spikes, and crunching bones with every blow. Fire seemed to not affect it, for it continued punching them no matter how much the flames licked at its metal. Grimm fell with every blow, a carpet of black and red rapidly coating the ground. The Grimm had no chance against this metallic monster.

They seemed to realize this after a bit and tried to run off. Only one or two managed to avoid the final punches aimed at them, leaving the rest behind in a mound of corpses.

The hunter stared, slack-jawed, at its metallic savior. It payed him no mind, instead turning around to face the last remaining metal creatures still lurking about the clearing. Its hand twisted around, looking like it was holding an invisible rock, before brief flashes of purple began flickering out it.

It threw its hand forward and the flashing purple went out, flying over to the remaining metal creatures and landing in the midst of them. _Kaboom!_ There was an explosion of purple light for a moment before it vanished, revealing the falling pieces of metal coming from the sky. One or two still remained, which were promptly dispatched by several more swathes of fire.

"Wow…" the hunter said as he looked around the clearing, taking in the sights of the quickly-disappearing Grimm corpses and the scattered piles of metal. The sole metal creature paid him no attention as it went around the clearing, gathering up all of the metal and somehow making it disappear into its own metal. The hunter ran up to it and tapped its shoulder, curious about its savior.

"Hey, what are you?" It stopped in the middle of picking up a shard and turned its head towards him, its one large red eye staring into his own eyes. Then it went back to its gathering, seemingly ignoring his question. Just when the hunter thought it wasn't able to talk, it answered.

"Kabr." The voice was muffled and raspy, as it hadn't been used in a long time. Nevertheless, there was a distinctive undertone of masculinity in its, no, _his_ speech.

"Kabr? Okay, I am Edward." He waited for any sign of aknowledgement but Kabr merely continued his scavenging. "What are you wearing? It's metal but not like anything I ever seen before."

"Armor."

"Okayyy…" Man, this guy didn't like talking much, did he? Instead, Edward watched as Kabr gathered the strange metal and wires, not seeing any sign of meat anywhere. "Where's the meat from this things?"

"Machine, not animal. Not living."

"What?!" He recoiled from Kabr, shock written across his entire face. "It wasn't alive?! But how?! It moved. it worked, it killed!"

Kabr lifted up a still-sparking wire in response. "Metal and electricity make machine."

"Electricity?"

Kabr pointed to the sky. "Lightning."

Kabr suddenly stood up, sending Edward stumbling back in an attempt to not be hit by the armored man. He watched blankly as Kabr strode off into the woods before he startled and chased off after him. "Wait! Where are you going?!"

"Exploring. New place." Kabr called back to him. Edward tripped over a few roots and lost sight of Kabr before he stood back up.

"Wait!" He yelled, trying to get Kabr to come back into view. "I know this forest! I could show you around! Kabr! Wait! Kabr! Kabr!"

He eventually ran into another clearing at full speed. Looking around, he saw no sign of his armored rescuer. Sighing, he sat on the ground and rested his head against his hand. "Dang… if Kabr had stayed, my tribe would have been safe forever from those Grimm. Maybe I could find him? No, he's long gone."

He sighed again, looking around the clearing through half-closed eyes. Then he opened wide open and bolted to his left, grabbing at some metal on the ground. Bringing it close and examining it, it appeared to be exactly like the ones Kabr was gathering earlier.

"This is just like Kabr's metal…" the hunter breathed out in wonder, admiring the metal shard and the bits of wire sticking out of it. He watched as a spark flickered and died, the metal gleaming for a moment before dimming.

"What did Kabr say these were? Machines?" Edward wondered outloud as he held the metal tightly in his hands. "He said they worked through metal and…. electricity?" He peered closely at it, waiting for another spark to appear. When none had appeared for five minutes, he groaned and sat back down.

"Drats, it seems to have died. Well, I guess even machines die eventually. They weren't alive so I guess it wasn't much of… a loss…." Edward's mind raced as he realized something, the thought making him grasp the metal all the more tightly.

"Wait… he said machines weren't alive. If they don't live, it's not a loss if they die. They could kill, I saw them kill some Grimm, so they're not pointless. If a machine can kill and if they aren't a loss when they die, they can defend us and we wouldn't die.. They would. We humans wouldn't die. Machines, not humans, would die. If we could make machines…" a grin emerged on Edward's face as one final thought entered his mind, "then humans would never again die to a Grimm."

He started scrambling about, trying to find as much metal as he could while he continued thinking outloud. "Where can we find electricity? He said lightning but storms don't happen a lot. Hmm.. I'll deal with that when I get to it."

The man that would one day become known as Edward Ironwood, founder of the Atlas line of generals and military officers, then continued scavenging up scraps of metal while he hummed a cheery tune to himself.

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><p>Kabr walked further into the forest, leaving the hunter and the clearing behind him far behind him in just a few minutes. Eventuallly he reached a cliff on the side of the mountain overlooking the whole forest. There he stopped and took a moment to get his bearings.<p>

He saved the hunter and that was it. He did not expect nor desire any conversation from the encounter. He did what he had to do and then continued on with his journey. Even before the Vault he wasn't the most sociable person and spending so much time there… alone… didn't help with social matters at all.

He suffered the man's questions for as long as he gathered the Vex remains to experiment with but left as soon as every last bit had been gathered. Thank goodness Guardians could dismantle objects on a molecular level and store them within their own wellsprings of Light or else he might not have ever escaped the man in time.

Kabr sat down crosslegged on the cliff and pulled out a Vex slap rifle from his Light storage. The familar shimmering bands of light surrounded the otherwise invisible gun and soon enough it appeared in his hands. Without any further thought he ripped it apart and exposed its electonic guts to the open air. He needed some Vex solar batteries to refill his weapons and he might as well get some now.

Before he could rummage around in the wiring, however,a sharp stain of pain ran through his gut, causing the solitary Titan to double over in agony. Soon enough it passed and he sat up again, this time choosing to pull up his arm display again and find out his Light level readings. The blue square flashed up, he saw what it said, and he closed it down before resuming his work, his mind reflecting upon his situation and the first seeds of despair being planted in his mind.

The Darkness was beginning to consume him.

He should have seen this coming, really. He'd spent so long in the bowels of one of the most Darkness-infested places in the entire solar system that it was an absolute miracle if he hadn't already been consumed before now. Now, though, in an unknown place with no possible way back to the Traveler and its cleansing properties, he was doomed.

Was it those creatures from earlier that caused it? They reeked of the Darkness, yet it was different from the kind he knew. His kind of Darkness was all-consuming, deep-rooted and sophiscated, an agent actively expanding towards devouring the Light. Theirs, however, was more primal, acting more upon instincts and raw savergy than the plans and thought-out procedures of the one back home. Still, the Darkness was the Darkness no matter its actions, and it was all too likely that those creatures have caused his eventual demise.

Kabr was unafraid and undaunted as he thought of these things, cracking open more rifles and gathering more solar batteries all the while. He was Kabr, the one Guardian crazy enough to test the Vault, the one foolish enough to challenge a Gorgon, the one reckless enough to strike the Vex mastermind on his own throne, and if he could survive all of that relatively unscathed, then he would not submit to the Darkness now eating his very Light!

Kabr finally collected all of the batteries and put both them and the remains of the slap rifles back into his Light, then stood up. He looked out over the forest and the ocean glistening in the distance one more time before turning around and walking away, leaving only a footprint in the dirt to ever show he had been there.

He was Kabr the Legionless and his will would not be denied.

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><p><strong>So…. what did you think? Does that meet your preconceptions about Kabr? Did everything seem somewhat logical? Should I stop asking questions now? <strong>

**In case you didn't pick up on it, Kabr is wearing the currently/previously unused set of raid armor, you know, Kabr's Faceguard and the such. His shader is currently a custom one mimicking the Vex because if he's going to wear armor like them, he was sure going to be colored like them as well.**

**I don't want to hold you any longer now and I'm probably going to be playing _T__he Dark Below_ when you read this so, without any further ado, ciao, adios, see ya, all that jazz. Bye.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Ha! Bet you all didn't expect me to update within a month this time, did you? I did it, though! I broke my own procrastination streak! Woo!**

…**.Until the next chapter, at least. Anyways, to the reviews!**

**ZXEclipse- Hahaha, I'm sorry! But hey, great minds think alike, right? It's a pity, if you also thought of that, I have liked to see what you come up with. Aw, thanks! I don't think I'm that good but it's very flattering to hear. Interesting, indeed. I have a few… ideas as to what will happen before the Rwby timeline. Thank you, I will enjoy it (and have done so).**

**thefluffyone93- I'm thinking that I will do maybe this chapter and one more in the past before going to present-day Rwby. Yeah, I hear you. It's always stuff like that which I miss. For that, I'm sorry.**

**Captain Rudds- I know, right? I mean, he pretty much a walking tank in a time of bows and spears, it's almost impossible for him to not be so. Plus there's the whole 'most bada*s Titan to ever live' factor going for him. Also, thank you.**

**AK74FU2- Nada, he didn't use a Nova Bomb, it was a magnetic grenade. Admittingly, in hindsight it wasn't described very well. I just was having trouble describing a grenade in a way that someone who has absolutely no clue what even a gun is would interpret it.**

**On that note, on with the story!**

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><p>The one downside of ending up on a primitive planet? You're pretty much stuck wherever you end up.<p>

That was Kabr's thought process as he wandered through the never-ending forest. At least, it seemed never-ending to him after wandering around inside of it for a month or two but never finding an exit. Apart from killing members of the Darkness and saving people from them, not much happened during that time.

In that month or two of walking, however, he did manage to get a rough indication of the continent he was on. It was mountainous, forested (**No dip, Sherlock**), roundish in shape, and a little bit bigger than old-Earth Australia. Also, there was very few people on the continent. As in maybe a few hundred on the entire thing.

The exact reason why that was came charging at him from the underbrush, claws already sweeping in for the death-blow. Without breaking stride, he ducked under the strike and slammed his fist into the creature's stomach, sending the wolfish monstrosity flying deeper into the forest.

The Grimm, that was what they called those creatures. Fitting when he considered their predicament. Forced to fight off endless waves of the Darkness with only bows and spears? He would think it was a bit grim himself.

Kabr coughed a few times as he walked and continued to suppress the pain starting to tingle in his arms. Every time he killed one of the Grimm the Darkness consumed him just a little more. First it was a tingle, then a spasm, then the pain started coming in… now he was on the physical deterioration stage. When he finally reached the collapsing stage, the Darkness will consume him… literally, he was pretty sure that some Grimm would eat him when he went down. That, however, was thoughts for another time, when he was closer to his end.

He looked at the trees surrounding him, curious about their odd coloring. About a week ago they started changing from their dull green color to a more vibrant red. It reminded him a bit of the countryside around the City, albeit with a lot less wreckage and ruins, the colors also being a lot brighter. It was while he reflecting upon these thoughts that he finally ran into more people.

He had just walked around a particularly large tree and into a clearing when he first saw them. They looked normal at first, just a black-haired woman and a white-haired man in the middle of Grimm-infested woods, and he was about to leave them to their wanderings when he noticed their ears.

Specifically, their animal-like ears on top of their heads.

A Hobgoblin line rifle was out and halfway charged before he even thought about it, the end of the gun flickering with barely-restrained flames as it aimed right at the duo. The woman practically shrieked as she dove behind the man, who had narrowed his eyes when he saw the flames and had lifted his fists up in a fighting stance. For a second the clearing was still, Kabr aiming his gun at the animal-people, the man preparing to brawl it out, and the woman cowering behind the man all the while. Then, after a few moments passed, the man began talking.

"Oi!" He growled as he stared into the flaming barrel that was facing him, "If ya gonna fight us, can we get goin' already? I gots to get food for the lady soon 'fore she passes out so hurry it up, ya punk!"

Once he heard the man-creature speak, Kabr lowered his gun and peered closely at him. On second glance, the man seemed completely human save for the ears on his head that looked like a bear's. Nevertheless, he needed to confirm that they were people.

"Not monsters?" Kabr asked the white-haired man. The man slowly lowered his fists in response when he saw Kabr with his weapon down and talking calmly. He remained tense, though, just in case the metallic newcomer still had any violent tendencies.

"Yeah, we ain't monsters. All them regular people like to think we are but we ain't. You, however, ya a monster, arentcha? You not like us or the regular people." By then the man had relaxed enough to lower his guard completely and to let the woman behind him stand up. She still stood partially behind him, apparently still wary of the brown-colored stranger.

"No." Kabr thumped one gauntleted hand against his chestplate, making a metallic ringing noise fill the air. "Armor. Human." Without any further comments he turned and left the clearing, leaving the two alone in the forest.

Or so he thought. A thought that was proven wrong within moments when he heard a gruff voice say close behind him, "Hey, where ya off to? Ya just started talking to us."

Kabr turned and faced him, drilling him with his glowing red eye. When the man didn't react aside from pulling the woman closer behind him, Kabr shrugged and continued walking. "No need," he answered.

The man grumbled to him, "Well, we got one. Ya see, ya the first…" he gave Kabr a hesitant glance right then, taking in the sight of his metal armor, black-clothed body, and sparking wires, before continuing, "... thing that ain't tried to kill or harm us so far, so we wanna stick around with some company, ya know? Safety in numb's and all that."

Kabr almost said no before he took a long look at them. They wore badly-made fur clothing, seemingly stitched together from whatever scraps they could scrounge up. Even then they would have been decent clothing if they hadn't been ripped and torn up afterwards, sometimes looking like they made from claws but other times appearing to be made by slash marks from swords.

All these Kabr saw in an instant and he found himself unable to say no to them. Instead, he nodded. The man grinned for the first time when he saw that. "Great! I'm named Mikil," he pointed to himself quickly before jerking a thumb in the direction of the woman, who was looking at Kabr with a curious expression, "and she doesn't have a name but I like to call her Fiore." Then Mikil raised an eyebrow, obviously expecting him to give his own name.

Kabr obliged if only to prevent the man from bugging him. "Kabr."

"Kabr, eh?" Mikil stroked his chin when he heard the name, obviously thinking deeply about something. He apparently didn't notice his female companion's expression of surprise. "Kabr, Kabr…. hey, aintcha that fella we've been hearing about….?" He trailed off when he noticed Kabr stop for a moment. "Hey, Kabr? Kabr?!" His voice grew panicked as both he and the woman looked at Kabr with shock when he fell to his knees, then collapsed face-first into the dirt.

The last thing Kabr heard before everything went dark was a feminine voice shouting his name.

"KABR?!"

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><p>For a while Kabr's world was filled with periods of darkness, periods of pain, and, somehow, periods of light. Occasionally he heard murmuring voices and sounds of movement before he was plunged back into his shadowy existence. Finally, after an amount of time that made his stay in the Vault seem short, he woke up to the ever-so-wonderful sound of a grumbling bear-man.<p>

"Ah, so ya finally awake, Kabr? Your collapse was so sudden that we almost were too surprised to do anything. Luckily for ya, Fiore here kept her head and made me pull ya to our camp." He gestured to Fiore, who had been sitting on a log nearby and had blushed when Mikil pointed her out. "Ya should thank her. Without her, ya might have died."

Kabr turned to her and gave her a quick nod, eliciting another blush from the young lady. Afterwards he started looking around the campsite, taking note of where they were. They were in another clearing some distance away from the old one and night had already fallen. Aside from a small campfire and a bundle of furs nearby, there was nothing to indicate that it was a campsite. At least they spared enough furs for him to lay on.

"I-it was nothing…" The woman said nervously, her animal ears twitching on top of her head. Kabr hadn't noticed this before but her animal ears were like a cat's, right down to the coarsest hair. "I-I mean, it was Mikil who carried you back to camp."

"Aye, and ya were heavy too." He rubbed a sore shoulder as if to prove his point. "If I could have got that armor stuff off ya it would have been easier."

"Never."

"What?"

Kabr gave him a look that could have frozen magma. Mikil, who had seen things in his life that would have made most people break down and collapse, had to suppress a cringe when he saw Kabr's red eye seemingly piercing into his soul. "Armor. Never. Off."

"Okay, okay… Sheesh, ya real scary when ya want to be, ya know?" Mikil shook his head in mock-disappointment. "Anyways, ya should still thank Fiore. She was the one who healed ya, after all."

"Healed?" No one could heal him when the Darkness was consuming him. It simply wasn't possible without the Traveler.

"Aye. Actually, shouldn't ya heal him again, Fiore?"

"Right," Fiore slid off her log and walked over to him, her hands reaching out to gently push him into a lying position. Kabr allowed himself to go down onto the furs because he didn't sense any hostile intent from her but he didn't really expect anything to happen. It was then to his great surprise when the woman's hands began glowing purple as she grabbed his head, the purple light seeping through his helmet and into his own stores of Light.

The Darkness eating at him from within lessened, diminishing under the power of Fiore's cleansing Light, for it could be nothing else but Light. But how? How could a woman on a strange primitive planet far from the Traveler wield the power of Light?

"There," she said, not noticing the fact that Kabr was staring at her, "I did all I can. Whatever it is, it won't come out and I don't think I can heal it anymore later…." Only just then did she notice her patient's focused stare, making her feel uncomfortable. "What?"

"How is there Light?" Kabr asked with a shocked tone. "How do you have Light?"

"Light?" She shook her head as she grabbed some meat from Mikil when he came by with some. "No, what I used was my Semblance. It allows me to heal most wounds and sickness, and it comes from my Aura." She tried to give Kabr the meat but he shook his head and she kept it for herself.

"Why….?" Kabr tried to ask about this 'Aura' nonsense she talked about, tried to get some sense about the whole subject, but she blushed and seemed to interpret the question differently.

"Why did I have Mikil bring you here and let me heal you?" She scratched the back of her head and smiled nervously. "Well, I wanted to return the favor."

"Favor?" What favor? He had never seen this person before today.

"A few days ago, you were wandering in the forest when you saw a few Beowolves, right?"

Everyday he sees a few… Beowolves? Is that what they call those wolf things? "Yes."

"Well, they were actually about to attack somebody hidden in a tree." Ah yes, they did seem to be sniffing around a tree when he ran into them. A few seconds later they were sniffing the dirt when their muzzles were burned off. "That someone was me. Mikil had left to go hunting and had left me alone. I had to hide in that tree when they appeared.

"And that's why I don't leave ya alone a lot anymore, Fiore," Mikil interrupted them from his own pile of furs a few feet away. While she was talking he had bundled himself in, about to go to sleep for the night. "Ya always seem to get into trouble when I leave ya."

"If somebody didn't always try to hunt by himself with those boulders he calls feet, I wouldn't have that problem," Fiore yelled back to him. She didn't sound angry, instead it sounded more like teasing.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, get back to ya sentimental talk, ya 'fraidy-cat." The responding comeback came from the burly hunter before he turned over in his fur-pile.

"Anyways…." Fiore had the tact to look embarrassed and try to hide it before continuing, "all I could see of you was a flash of brown. It was only until a day or two later when I was scavenging for some food near a village when I heard your name. Two hunters were returning from the afternoon hunt and while I hid they were talking about brown metal creature killing a lot of Grimm recently named Kabr. I wasn't sure it was you until you said your own name was actually Kabr. When you revealed yourself to us, I wanted to return the favor and…." she smiled such a grateful smile that it even touched Kabr's jaded heart, albeit for just a moment, "to thank you for saving me. So, thank you."

Kabr looked at the grateful woman tending to him and nodded once more. She smiled again before trying to give him some meat again. "You need to eat to regain your health. Come on, have some."

Kabr shook his head before sitting up. "No need to eat." His Light sustained him and made impervious to the pangs of hunger and the calling of sleep. It wouldn't be good if he needed to have a snack or take a nap in the middle of fighting the Darkness, after all. "No sleep. You sleep."

"What?" Fiore tried to protest as Kabr stood up and escorted her to her bed of furs. "I don't need to sleep, you do! You need to recover and to heal and to…"

"Keep watch," Kabr intoned. Fiore almost argued again before she looked into Kabr's eye. Something told her it would not be wise to argue with him.

"Okay, okay…." She laid down without further complaint and started to fall asleep. Before she did, though, she smiled at him one last time. "Goodnight, Kabr."

Kabr didn't say or do anything as the woman settled down and began snoring. Kabr stood up and walked to a nearby tree, leaning against it in preparation to keep watch. Mikil had long since journeyed into dreamland and was sleeping like a baby so it was just Kabr awake.

He wasn't lying when he said he couldn't sleep but even if he could he would have kept watch anyway for two reasons. First because it was simply a habit developed from fighting the Vex non-stop for a long time. They wouldn't sleep so he couldn't have afforded to either. Second was the fact that he had a lot to think about.

One of the main things on his mind was why he keeping watch in the first place. Normally he would have left as soon as he could move so why didn't he this time? Maybe it was because, because… these two seemed alone in the world. No one else would give them the time of day just because of their ears. That made no sense, by the way, they would be excellent hunters because of the additional hearing and Fiore's healing ability was invaluable in any situation. If he left them, who knows what would happen to them? He had to keep an eye on them in case something happens.

And maybe he was feeling a bit lonely…. besides saving the occasional village, he has been alone for a while….

No, absolutely not. Guardians never get lonely, they were too focused on defending the City to worry about small things like social interaction.

Next up on the list was all the 'Aura' business going all. It was like she naturally had the Light in her but that was impossible. Right? Of course it was, you had to die and be revived by a Ghost to be able to wield the Light. Wait… Ghosts revived people who had the potential to wield the Light. Does that mean that somewhere on this planet the ability to unlock that potential has been discovered without the need of a Ghost?! That…. that…. changes _everything_! If he could discover how that was possible and returned to the Speaker, he could potentially change the course of the fight against the Darkness! If only his Ghost was here to help him figure this all out…

Speaking of figuring it all out, what about Semblances? Was that an expression of their classes? Does that mean things beyond Titans, Hunters, and Warlocks exist upon this planet?! He really had to get back as soon as possible!

For now, though, he will watch over the two sleeping animal-people and he will figure this all out later.

For now, he will keep them safe.

* * *

><p>"We almost gots it." Mikil whispered to his metal partner as he closed in on the unsuspecting deer. He slowly began drawing back his bow, an arrow already held tightly against the drawstring. "Just a little bits closer."<p>

Kabr followed him quietly (well, as quietly as a lumbering Titan clad in armor could be) through the red underbrush, his line rifle firmly grasped in one hand. The red that had been overtaking the color in the trees has now fully consumed the green by then, leaving the entire continent covered in a shade of crimson. According to what the two following him for a week now have said, this was this continent's rough equivalent of old Russia's fall.

Ah, old Russia…. how he misses the rotting corpses of the fallen cargo planes, the many hours he spent with his ghost hunting down scavenging Vandals, the dark caves and the majestic forests they scouted out together in search of the Fallen House of Squirrels….

"Oi, Kabr! That furry bit of dinner is running off! Whatcha doin' there, ya slacking piece of scrap metal?!" He was shaken out of his thoughts roughly by the sound of his annoyed hunting companion and the sight of the deer running away from an inaccurate arrow that had missed the creature by a mere six inches.

The responding stream of flame he fired did not miss the unfortunate deer.

"Woo, me and Fiore gots some good eats tonight!" Mikil cheered as Kabr dissolved his line rifle and moved forward to pick up the smoldering carcass. "And we don't even gots to cook it either!" He went up to Kabr and gave him a hearty slap on the back as he was bending down. "Nice job, Kabr! Nice job!"

After Kabr grabbed the dead deer and Mikil retrieved his wayward arrow, they began making their way back to camp. Aside from the occasional pain spasms from the Darkness consuming him with a vengeance, which Fiore seemed unable to heal anymore lately, Kabr didn't have reason to speak and neither did Mikil. Silence was their company for a while. Then, in the midst of their return trip, Mikil ventured a question.

"Hey, Kabr," he began, stroking his slightly-stubbled chin. Kabr turned to face him as they walked, giving Mikil the signal to continue. "I was just a wonderin', why dontcha give me one of your fire-tube things next time we go hunting? That way, we can gets mo-"

"No." Kabr stopped Mikil's train of thought before it could go any further down its railroad. "No gun."

"Why no 'gun', Kabr? Me and Fiore could have lots more food if you give me one." Mikil slapped the flank of the carcass once as they talked. "If this is whatcha get with one, think how much we would gets with two?"

"No." Kabr's tone went quiet and extremely cold, stopping any further argument Mikil could have in its tracks. All Mikil could do then was toss his hands in the air, fortunately while his bow was on his back.

"Fine, fine, ya obsessive piece of junk." Mikil shook his head a few times. "Sheesh, it was a simple question. No need to be so sensitive."

Rationally, Kabr knew Mikil was right, that they would get more food for him and Fiore if he simply gave him one of the guns. It's just…. the Vex weapons were his. No one else can touch the Vex weapons. No one else can use the Vex. The Vex were his alone. Everything Vex belongs to him. No one else will take that from him.

"Well, whatever. We'll still gets enough to eat now with you hunting so why…" Mikil stopped talking quite suddenly and stopped walking, causing Kabr to stop as well. Kabr turned to face him and saw the expression on Mikil's face; an expression full of horror.

"No…" Lightning could have struck right then and it would have still missed Mikil, that was how fast he took off running. Kabr shrugged off the deer carcass and went after him, the speed enhancements in his leg armor being pushed hard for only the second time he came to this strange planet. As he ran, though, he was still able to notice the massive amount of smoke filling the air from the direction of the campsite and the sound of angry shouting.

Kabr caught to a heaving Mikil quickly and kept pace with him as they ran towards the campsite. Mikil didn't react to his sudden reappearance save for running faster. Then a little faster. Then a little faster. Then a little….

* * *

><p>When they had burst into the campsite clearing right then, they were met with fire. Lots and lots of fire.<p>

The campfire had long since spiraled out of control, setting all nearby grass and sticks aflame. The furs were just a pile of orange and red flames by now, appearing to have set alight by another source other than the campfire. Arrows littered the ground, fired willy-nilly by people who obviously didn't care if they had hit or not. It was a scene of destruction and, for Mikil, a scene of despair.

"No… they didn't…" Mikil fell to his knees and looked like he was on the verge of tears. Kabr didn't want that because it was uncomfortable to watch a thirty-something year-old man with bear ears cry.

"She lives," Kabr told the near-weeping man on the ground. Mikil looked up at him, the first tears beginning to leak out of the corner of his eyes.

"What?"

"That way," Kabr pointed towards out of the clearing diagonally, in the direction where the arrows on the ground were the thickest, where there were footprints scattered all around, and where shouting could still be heard from.

Mikil didn't bother to respond before bolting straight in that direction. Once again Kabr followed, this time to make sure Mikil didn't gets hurt…. wow, he really has been around him too much. Maybe he shouldn't follow actually. It would be better for his speech patterns.

* * *

><p>"Well, well, well, looks like the little kitty has nowhere else to run." The white-haired man speaking was a young man in his twenties, dressed in well-made furs and wielding an exquisite bow. The little kitty in question was huddled against a large boulder while a group of six hunters surrounded here with their weapons drawn.<p>

"Since we caught her, should we skin this cat? It'll make a nice coat," another one of the group chuckled with an eerie grin.

"Naw, we should keep her as a pet, put her on a leash and 'play' with her sometimes," a brown-haired man to the right of the boulder said.

"Please, just leave me alone," the cat-woman tried to beg, only to scream in pain when the first man kicked her in the stomach.

"Who said you could talk, freak?!" He yelled at her angrily. "Animals like you exist only for our gain." He pulled back the string of his bow while he loaded on a particularly sharp arrow. The rest of the hunters ran forward and held the woman in her twenties down, ignoring her struggles and her pleas for help.

"And we like to gain…" The man paused for a moment as he reached full draw, his arms beginning to shake with the strain, "...by hunting animals."

Just as he was about to let go of the arrow, a hairy fist slugged him in the jaw.

Mikil roared as the hunter went flying across the open space, leaving his bow behind. His face was an ugly shade of brick-red and his hands were grasping at the air. Between that, his heaving frame, and the elongated canines now visible in his gaping mouth, he looked every bit of the bear his furry ears took their appearance from.

"WHO DARES TO TOUCH MY KITTY-CAT?!" His voice made the heavens themselves rumble as his raging body faced the now-trembling hunters. They let go of Fiore as they backed away from both the boulder and the beast that was currently facing them. "WHO DARES TO STRIKE MY DAUGHTER?! I WILL TEAR YOU TO SHREDS IF YOU HAD SO MUCH AS EVEN TOUCHED A SINGLE HAIR ON HER EARS!"

"Mi-Mikil…" Fiore whispered as she huddled against the boulder, tears running freely down her face at his proclamation.

The brown-haired hunter who spoke earlier gathered his courage and stepped forward, brandishing his bow with an arrow already drawn. He called back to his four remaining companions, "Come on, lads! He's just one lowly piece of trash versus five of us, he's dead meat!"

He released his hand, sending the arrow at high speeds towards Mikil courtesy of tension. The pointy bit of rock pierced Mikil's shoulder, sending a steady stream of blood pouring down to the ground. Mikil's response was to roar again, so loudly that leaves began falling off the trees and a certain zombie's helmet filters nearly popped, and charge at the surprised hunter.

Mikil reached the hunter before he could react and grabbed his bow, snapping it over his knee without pause. His twitching hand grabbed the hunter's throat, lifting him into the air and then slamming him into the ground. The hunter's breath left him in a moment, rendering him unable to even scream in pain.

The four hunters still standing glanced at each quickly before two of them charged forward with spears while the other two stayed behind with their bows being readied to fire. So occupied they were in attempting to aim their bows, in fact, that they missed the flash of metal that appeared behind them.

They noticed him only when one of them was lit on fire.

The unfortunate man screamed as the flames seared his skin and his clothes turned to ash. He promptly ran off into the woods, leaving behind both his bow and his stunned partner. Said partner tried to bring his bow around to fire at the sudden attacker, only to eat metal as the newcomer smacked his metal-clad hand into his face. He went spiraling to the ground, out cold.

Kabr stepped over the unconscious person and made his way to Fiore, grabbing her by the arm and lifting her onto her feet as she continued staring at Mikil.

"Kabr, shouldn't you go help him?" She asked him, her eyes never leaving Mikil for a moment as the bear-in-a-man's-skin lifted his victim up by the throat with a clawed hand and smashed him into an oncoming blitzer, making them fall like twigs under his primal anger. Kabr shook his head as he pointed a finger at the raging Mikil.

"Fine," He said, watching the man slung a fist into the hunter still standing's jaw, sending the man tumbling into his fallen allies. Mikil snarled as he fell upon the downed trio, fists, fangs, and claws tearing into them like a, well, bear with a pile of meat.

Kabr and Fiore continued to watch for several minutes as blood and hair flew into the air before Kabr decided to finally end up. He went and grabbed Mikil's hand just as it went back for another blow, stopping him in the midst of the beating he was giving out.

"Enough," He said, getting a glare from Mikil with rage still burning in his eyes. Kabr ignored it as he gestured towards the frozen Fiore standing across the clearing. The rage vanished immediately as Mikil rose to his feet and rushed towards her. As he ran, his more animalistic traits such as the extra hair and the claws quickly vanished from his body, making him appear almost completely human except for the bear ears. Fiore did nothing but widen her eyes when Mikil wrapped her in a fierce bear-hug (**because it had to be said) **with tears running down his face.

"I gotta stop leaving ya alone, little kitty," Mikil murmured between bouts of weeping. "I always end up saving ya like this, even we just first met. Never again, Fiore. I'm never leavin' ya alone again."

"Mikil…." Fiore tried to cut in, "Did you mean it?" When Mikil looked up at her face with tears running down his, she attempted to explain. "Do you really think of me… as your daughter?"

Mikil looked flabbergasted for a moment before he gave her a big grin as he stood up, pulling her up with him. "Of course, ya scaredy cat. From the first time I saved ya from those hungry wolves years ago, I always thought of ya as my daughter." He jerked his head quickly in the direction of Kabr, who had been standing quietly nearby during their private moment. "And I like to think of that hunk of metal as that one crazy cousin everybody has."

Fiore smiled as she returned finally Mikil's hug, the two lost in their own little world **(ugh, why do I write so many cliche things?)**. Then the tender moment was ruined when the first hunter Mikil knocked out, the one with white hair, groaned and began sitting up from his position on the ground.

"Ouch, what happened?" He asked himself, not appearing to notice the approaching red-eyed being. "All I remember is chasing a mangy stray-" The next few words died in his throat when he heard a click and lashes of fire formed in front of his face.

"Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah!" He cried out, shuffling backwards on his hands and feet as fast as he could. He looked up fearfully at the source of flames. "Hey, please, be careful with th- wait a minute." He peered closely at the sight that greeted him, looking over the brown metal, white accents, and glowing red eye, before a light-bulb seemed to go off in his head and he was on his feet, shaking Kabr's hand fiercely.

"Wow, you're Kabr!" He said excitedly as he continued to shake his hand in Kabr's cold grip, ignoring the looks of confusion he was getting from the two others in the clearing and Kabr's blank stare. "I never expected to meet you out here! What are you doing with these animals?" With those last words he spared a glance at Fiore and Mikil, eliciting a hiss and a growl from them.

He shrugged as he turned back to the unresponsive Titan. "Nevermind, who cares? I've been wanting to meet you ever since you saved our village chief a while back. You're all we've been talking about since then. Especially since you snapped one monster's spine with a punch!" A grin emerged on his face, not one of happiness but of hidden intent. "Actually, it gave me an idea for something a while ago and I want to tell you about it." He began steering Kabr away from his companions and began walking him in the direction of his village with an arm around Kabr's shoulders, ignoring the duo that followed them angrily anyway.

"Comrades?" Kabr asked the man as they walked, jerking his thumb back towards the clearing. The man merely waved off the question with an unconcerned toss of the arm.

"They'll be fine, no Grimm are around so they'll come back to camp later. Now onto business, Kabr, my friend. You see, I happen to be a miner by trade. A few days ago while I was just digging along, I hit an ore vein that just won't break. No matter how many men try to mine it, it simply won't shatter." The hunter threw up a hand in mock-exasperation. "And the d*mn Grimm always attack for some reason when we try to get more people in to dig it up!" A long finger suddenly found itself up against Kabr's chestplate when the hunter- no, miner made his point.

"And that," he said excitedly, "is where you come in. Everyone knows you're the strongest person around. Even other villages say so. I mean, you can break a Beowolf's mask without effort, something that's never been done before! I bet you can easily break a measly rock, probably with just a finger! Even if you couldn't, you could hold off those b*stards of darkness with ease as we get more miners into the tunnels."

"So," he ended with, a hand extended out for Kabr to shake, "What do you say? No matter how much we dig up, we'll give you about a third if you help me out."

"Don't listen to that lying pile of junk, Kabr!" Mikil interrupted for the first time with a shout, garnering an annoyed glance from the whire-haired talker. His only response to the glance was to pull Fiore a little closer to him. "I gots a bad feeling about this and that punk too! He tried to hurt Fiore, he can't be anyone good! Don't do it!"

Part of Kabr's mind agreed with Mikil completely, that nothing good could come from this arrangement. Another part didn't care, the part that wanted him to leave all of these talkative strangers behind and just go be by himself again, where he would be more comfortable.

The final part, the part of him being wracked and wounded by the Darkness currently eating him on the inside, wanted him to accept. It wanted him to contribute one final thing before he went, to show the Darkness that it could not hold down a Titan like him, no matter how much it devours his Light.

_And maybe,_ it whispered deep inside, _you want to give a parting gift to those who saved you from the Darkness, if only for a little while._

In the end, that part came to the forefront of his mind as he looked into the miner's now-leering grin. "Well?" He asked, moving his hand a little closer to Kabr's still form. "Are you in?"

Kabr grasped the outstretched hand and gave it a firm shake despite the loud protests from the man-bear close behind him. The miner's grin grew a little longer when he felt the grip that met his own.

"Excellent," He said as they both pulled their hands back. "Since I know your name, it's only fair you know mine now that you accepted my proposition. My name is Feucht Schnee and it's a pleasure to work with you at last, Kabr."


End file.
